Listening to New Moon, the posthumous CD by Elliott Smith evokes emotions that remind me of those engendered by listening to the music of Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley. All were shy, talented and enjoy more success in death than in life. One is struck by a sense of melancholy and loss, mourning for the wasted potential. I can only hope those who handle Elliott Smith’s estate respect his memory sufficiently to restrain themselves in warming over material Elliott would have released while he lived if he had felt it deserved exposure. Unfortunately those who have access to the others have not exercised such good taste milking experimental tracks to feed a hungry fan base.
Listening to this recording conjures up a sense of melancholy just as does watching Jeff Buckley’s Live at Chicago or listening to Drakes’ Bryter Layter. Is it prior knowledge of what happened to these individuals or is the depression infectious? Certainly the texts of some of these ballads are freighted with heavy meaning. Why would such gifted artists feel such lack of confidence in their own abilities and live such self-destructive lifestyles. One can just imagine Elliott throwing up in the bathroom before going on stage to perform at the Oscars—appearing on that show must have been torture. Whether or not the death of any of these artists was self-inflicted one has a sense of a light flaring so brightly that it cannot sustain intensity.
These three are in a long unhappy tradition of musicians who died young but these three share an uncanny similarity in acoustic style, musicianship, and hauntingly plaintive solo laments. There is a sense of depression, longing, and gloom infused in their performance. “No man is an island… …Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.”
